- A little background:
This was written through one whole day while I was at school. A friend of mine and I decided to do a random story challenge type thing. We pick a prompt (he picked this one, I picked the next one, and we just trade of like this) and this was the result from one of them. He took a more comedic stance on his while mine is sad enough for my friend to get mad at hit me then hug me. I decided I'd put it up here and on my deviantART. I'll link to the Tumblr I found these prompts on; we changed the one we chose. So, the prompt was write a sad goodbye and here it is. I hope you enjoy if you read it. And if you want to hit me as well then...I'm sorry but I cannot provide you that satisfaction because I likely live far too far from you and frankly I don't want to spend the money and neither do you.
P.S. A nice accompaniment to this story might be the song This Is War by 30 Seconds to Mars. That was the song playing through my head as I wrote this and maybe it provided some inspiration halfway partway through the story.
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- xxxxxLoud whistling echoed through the city that sat in ruins. Planes painted in gray blended in with the darkened sky as they flew overhead to drop bombs that exploded as soon as they made contact with anything. The planes flew out of view once the last of the bombs were dropped. Foot soldiers moved at a quick pace swiftly over the crumbled remains of buildings. A team of five soldiers moved together as a unit that functioned like a machine. Everything they carried seemed light because they carried it together, emotional or physical. They patrolled for survivors; animals would do if they could lead the soldiers to their masters. The group had their doubts about anyone surviving the three day bombing. Although nothing was toxic there had been a lot of bombs dropped. The soldier out in front of the small group stopped causing the four behind him to slow their pace until they came to a stop a few feet behind him.
xxxxx“What’s wrong?” One man asked with a pack of cigarettes held to his helmet by a band of cloth. “Arkman.” The man in front of the four soldiers turned to stare at the soldier that had pulled him back to reality.
xxxxx“I smell wood burning.”
xxxxx“Everything’s burning, man.” Erikson stated as he held his arms out to his sides, arms parallel to the ground, and his gun in one hand.
xxxxx“No, wood; not something from a building like drywall.” Erikson raised an eyebrow before he turned to look at the other three men. Lark tilted his head back with his nose pointed to the sky as he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.
xxxxx“He’s right; someone’s burnin’ somethin’.” Lark confirmed which caused Erikson, Jones, and Moore to sigh. Fire meant people, people meant possible survivors, and people in general meant work.
xxxxx“Look for white smoke.” Arkman ordered while the team of five slowly split up. They all looked between the sky to find the smoke and the ground to see where they stepped. If took around four minutes before one of the soldiers found the long stream if fluffy white smoke that came from behind a partly intact building.
xxxxx“Other there!” Moore called out. The others turned to look at Moore before they looked to where the man pointed. They all looked to Arkman, who gave a nod. They couched down, their steps became swift and light as they made their way over to the back of the building the smoke was behind. They split into two teams, Erikson and Arkman went to the left while Moore, Lark, and Jones went right. They went along the sides of the buildings, their arms inches from the walls as they stayed as close to the walls as they could.
xxxxxArkman leaned into the wall with his pack while Erikson leaned into it with his arm. Both had their guns aimed down with the safety off, ready to bring the guns up to fire at anyone that posed a threat. Arkman twisted his upper body as he peaked his head around the corner of the building. Aside from rubble, the only thing to be seen was a small camp. Four makeshift tents made with tarps were pitched around a fire pit made from chunks of buildings. Arkman and Jones made eye contact. With a nod all five men walked away from the building, guns raised ready to shoot as they carefully walked over to the tents. Each soldier stood by the entrance of a tent, Lark and Jones had to share one. Arkman raised his hand and counted down from five before they all shoved the flaps of the tents aside to look inside. All they found were makeshift sleeping bags, some food, and very few belongings.
xxxxx“The fire is recent.” Lark commented as he walked over to the fire that glowed orange with red edged that flickered.
xxxxx“We just missed them.” Moore said bitterly while the others glanced around.
xxxxx“Let’s keep mov—s**t!” Arkman shouted as bullets rained from above them. “Cover! Take cover!” They ran in separate directs to any large chunks of building that could act as cover. They looked over the edge of whatever they hid behind to see men in the second and third floor windows of the building they had walked around earlier. They took aim at the enemy and fired. Bullets whizzed past heads and other body parts. The team of five was outnumbers by nearly double.
xxxxx“Retreat! Retreat!” Arkman shouted the order as he reloaded his gun. The four soldiers got up and ran for their lives. As they ran, Arkman stayed behind hidden behind his cover as he shot at the enemy soldiers to provide some form of cover for his men. He looked back for what felt like the hundredth time and saw his man were out of sight. He made a run for and went into a building he thought he had seen the rest of his team go into as the enemy started to move away from the windows.
xxxxx“Erikson? Moore? Lark?! Jones!” He called out, fear slowly started to pour into his voice as it echoed through the empty building. He slowly started to walk through the building in search of his men until he heard four gunshots from outside. Without hesitation he ran in the direction of the gunfire and slid to a window. He pushed himself up to his knees to look outside. Enemy soldiers walked away from four bodies that laid on the ground. He quickly ducked back down, to hide; his body shook furiously.
xxxxxOnce he was sure that the enemy soldiers were gone, the leader of the team moved out of the building over to the four bodies on the ground. Crimson pooled around the bodies as Arkman dropped his gun then his pack. He fell to his knees as he stared at the bodies while shock took over. How could he have left this happen? He should have been with them.
xxxxx“Arkman…?” A weak voice questioned from the left. Slightly pink eyes turned to look at Erikson. Frantically, Arkman crawled over to the soldier. He held the man up in his arms; Erikson could sit less than halfway up.
xxxxx“Y-You’re gonna be okay, Erikson; you’ll b-be fine.” The leader of the team assured through gaps of air while his hand applied pressure to the bullet wound. Erikson just smiled at his commander weakly.
xxxxx“It’s okay, Arkman…I know…” he said as his breaths became shallow. Salty tears spilled over the brim of Arkman’s eyes as he watched the light in his friends eyes grow dull. “Hey…if I make it there…I’ll see you up there…I’ll see you with my new wings,” Erikson managed a weak grin that paled to his normal ones as he struggled to speak, “I’ll be seein’ ya, Arkman.”
xxxxx“No…No!” Arkman protested as his squad member, his friend, his brother went limp in his arms. “Erikson, no! Don’t…don’t leave me here alone…!” Arkman shouted through uncontrollably sobs as he hugged the corpse of his brother. He didn’t stop crying when he felt the gun pressed against his head and the tears still streamed after the trigger was pulled.
